Today in all likelihood Sony will announce the Playstation 4. As I bought a PS2 and a PS3, I probably count as a likely customer for the PS4. But before the thing is even announced I personally already consider it unlikely that I will ever buy one.

I loved my PS2. There were a lot of great games on that platform which weren't available elsewhere. Specifically the Final Fantasy series on the PS2 was great, I even played some of the PS1 Final Fantasy games that were playable on the PS2. Other games I liked also were often of the Japanese RPG genre, or variations thereof, like Dark Cloud.

Then came the PS3 and destroyed my love affair with the Playstation brand. Only the very early Japanese and US models of the PS3 were backwards compatible, while the PS3 I bought in Europe wasn't. So suddenly I had a huge library of games I couldn't play any more, because I didn't have the room to have both consoles installed at the same time. And then Final Fantasy XIII was a huge disappointment. The one game I ended up playing the longest on the PS3 was Red Dead Redemption, but most other titles on the PS3 weren't exclusive. There weren't so many Japanese RPGs on offer. And many of the games that sold well for the PS3 were the kind that I either wasn't all that interested in, or shooters which I much prefer to play with a mouse and keyboard. I dislike aiming with a gamepad.

Another negative point was that I used my PS2 to watch DVDs, and I had software which allowed me to watch DVDs from any region, allowing me to buy TV series on DVD on the US Amazon.com. The PS3 is solidly region locked, and useless for watching foreign DVDs. Other restrictions of the PS3 annoyed me even more: If I told the PS3 that I lived in Belgium, the only language options I got were French and Dutch. So I lied when I made my PS3 account and claimed I was living in the UK, just so I could run the thing in English. But then of course Sony wouldn't accept my credit card with a Belgian address any more, so I could only use the PS Store with UK prepaid cards bought via the internet. I felt the Playstation 3 totally boxed me in with national and regional restrictions, not allowing for the option that maybe somebody wasn't living in his the country he was born in, or interested in the films and games of other countries or regions.

Whatever the technical specs announced for the PS4 are, two things are almost sure: My current PC has better graphics than the PS4. And my PC is a lot less restrictive if I want to access content from other countries or regions. So right now I have trouble thinking of a reason why I would need a Playstation 4.